Liverpool sculptor Terry McDonald is creating a sculpture of Britain’s colossus of the Battle of the Atlantic, but needs a sponsor to finish the project.

Undaunted by age, Terry, 83, of Crosby, is sculpting a seven feet tall clay model of Admiral Sir Max Horton with one foot set on a symbolic mini-depth charge, in his garden studio.

His wish is to cast the work as a bronze figure, which would cost £20,000, for display in Exchange Flags, Liverpool.

This would be near to the Western Approaches Head Quarters under Derby House, where Admiral Horton was Commander-in-Chief in the latter half of World War II.

Admiral Horton was responsible for Britain’s strategic success in beating the German U-boats, with Capt Johnnie Walker who led the anti-submarine escort groups.

Terry trained under the highly renowned sculptor Herbert Tyson Smith for 10 years and worked on many city buildings, such as Lewis’s, and churches, including helping to maintain Liverpool Anglican Cathedral’s masonry.

Liverpool sculptor Terry McDonald

Although retired, Terry is keen that Admiral Horton’s memory is kept alive through his towering sculpture.

“Without Admiral Horton’s brilliance we would have lost the war,” said Terry, who recalls as a child watching Liverpool burn in the May 1941 Blitz from his parents pub, the Coach and Horses, at Low Hill and Prescot Street corner.

“Because of the German U-boat campaign, in 1942 Britain only had a few days of food left and the PM Winston Churchill knew something had to be done and Horton was the man to do it.

“I remember seeing convoys waiting in the river to unload their cargoes of food, material and munitions to keep the country going. Horton’s strategy allowed these vital convoys to reach us.

“I believe that without Horton there would have been no Capt Johnnie Walker.

“When I saw Tommy Murphy’s Pier Head statue of Johnnie Walker, I thought when I retire I’ll do the same thing for Admiral Horton.

“I finally started about nine months ago and I made a third scale maquette working from photographs. Now I do about two hours a day."

The modelling clay is the very same as used by CG Allen for his sculpture of Queen Victoria, in Derby Square, inherited from Tyson Smith.

If no sponsor emerges to create the bronze, Terry will cast the figure in fibreglass and put it in his little back garden – a sad fate for such a great man.